Nonverbal Dictionary | Page 2

gr\
ace than Erik, unsure of their
steps, second-guessing every move" (Greenfeld 2001:57).
Media. In movies of the 1950s, such as Monkey Business (1952) and Jailhouse Rock (1957), motions of
the pelvic girdles of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, respectively, ha\
d a powerful influence on
American popular culture.
Salesmanship. "Your walk, entering and exiting, should be brisk and businesslike, ye\
s. But once you are
in position, slow your arms and legs down" (Delmar 1984:48).
RESEARCH REPORT: "A nonverbal act is defined as a movement within any single body area \
(head,
face, shoulders, hands, or feet) or across multiple body areas, which h\
as visual integrity and is visually
distinct from another act" (Ekman and Friesen 1968:193-94).
E-Commentary: "I am searching for the piece of influential advice that will help one\
of my employees to communicate in
a positive way nonverbally. Her boredom and impatience are so evident. S\
he shifts in her seat, rolls her eyes, and sighs
during meetings. It is disturbing to her co-workers and bad for morale. \
I have explained to her it is not appropriate. She
replies she can't hide the way she feels. On the other hand, she wants t\
o keep her job. So what can I do to get through to
her before she loses her job?" --T., USA (4/17/00 8:40:04 PM Pacific Da\
ylight Time)
Neuro-notes. Many nonverbal signals arise from ancient patterns of muscle contracti\
on laid down
hundreds of millions of years ago in
paleocircuits of the spinal cord, brain stem, and forebrain.
See also
FACIAL EXPRESSION, INTENTION CUE, POSTURE.
Copyright © 1998 - 2001 (David B. Givens/Center for Nonverbal Studies)
Detail of photo by Heinz Kluetmeier (Soviet gymnasts; copyright 1980 by\
Heinz Kluetmeier)
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hands
HANDS
His hands are like antennae, gathering information as they flick outward\
, surveying the rock for cracks, grooves, bowls,
nubbins, knobs, edges and ledges, converting all of it into a road map e\
tched into his mind. --Karl Greenfeld (2001:60) on
Erik Weihenmayer, 33, the first blind climber to scale Mount Everest (s\
ee below, Anatomy)
His hands rose, fluttered like wounded birds a few inches above the surf\
ace of his desk, slowly came back to a landing. --
George C. Chesbro, Shadow of a Broken Man (1977:40)
Smart parts. 1. The terminal end organs below the forearms, used to grasp and gesture. 2. The most
expressive parts of the human body.
Usage: Their combined verbal and nonverbal IQs make hands our most expressive\
body parts. Hands
have more to say even than
faces, for not only do fingers show emotion, depict ideas, and point to
butterflies on the wing--they can also read Braille, speak in
sign languages, and write poetry. Our hands
are such incredibly gifted communicators that they always bear watching.\
Observation. So connected are hands to our nervous system that we rarely keep them \
still. Indeed, the
First Law of Nonverbal Dynamics would be, "A hand tends to stay in motio\
n even while at rest." When a
hand is not moving or handling an object, it is busy scratching, holding\
, or massaging its partner. This
peculiar tendency of the digits to fuss and fidget intensified as our fi\
ngers became major tools used to
explore and shape the material world. The more gifted they became, the m\
ore we waved them about as
sensory feelers.
Anatomy. Hands are the tactile antennae we throw out to assay our material world and palpate its moods.
Most of the 20 kinds of nerve fiber in each hand fire off simultaneously\
, sending orders to muscles and
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hands
glands--or receiving tactile, motion, and position information from sens\
e organs embedded in tendons,
muscles, and skin (Amato 1992). With a total of 100 bones, muscles, jo\
ints, and types of nerve, our hand
is uniquely crafted to shape thousands of
signs. Watching a hand move is rather like peering into the
brain itself.
Cave art. Stenciled images of human hands are "common" and "sometimes dominate" \
areas of Ice-Age
caves (dating to between 35,000 and 20,000 years ago; Scarre 1993:59).\
In France's Gargas cave, hands
are depicted with missing fingers or finger segments. "It is unclear whe\
ther the joints had actually been
lost through frostbite or some other condition, or whether the fingers w\
ere bent in some kind of signaling
system" (Scarre 1993:59; see below, Neuro-notes II).
Evolution. The 27 bones, 33 muscles and 20 joints of our hand originated ca. 400 \
m.y.a. from the lobe
fins of early fishes known as rhipidistians. Primeval "swim fins" helped our aquatic ancestors paddle
through Devonian seas in search of food and mates. In
amphibians, forelimbs evolved as weight-bearing
platforms for walking on land. In
primates, hands were singled out for upgrade as tactile antennae or
"feelers." Today (unlike flippers, claws, and hooves), fingers link to\
intellectual modules and emotion
centers of the brain. Not only can we thread a needle, e.g., we can also\
pantomime the act of threading
with our